As far as Lumia goes, Nokia managed to sell 7.4 million of these Windows-based smartphones compared to 5.6 million last quarter. Naturally, with BlackBerry having shipped only 6.8 million phones last quarter (a number that has been in decline), the media jumped all over this to declare Nokia the victor as the #3 player in smartphones.

I think the comparison of 7.4 million Lumias to 6.8 million BlackBerrys is pretty much useless. Why? Well, this is the 7th quarter of Lumia shipments while it’s barely the 2nd quarter of BlackBerry 10 shipments. And obviously the Q10 has had nearly no effect on BlackBerry’s latest numbers because of the timing of its launch relative to quarter end. In addition, the Q5 hadn’t even shipped by the time the quarter ended. So we really need to see what the next couple of quarters bring. Yes, Nokia is far ahead of BlackBerry, but both Lumia and BlackBerry 10 device volumes are growing.

But more important, we should not be thinking about legacy BBOS phones as part of the modern day smartphone battle. The latest BB7 OS may still be selling well in emerging markets, but it represents the past, not the future. Legacy BlackBerry users will either migrate to BlackBerry 10, or they’ll leave the platform in favor of something else.

It’s worth pointing out that in Lumia’s second quarter on the market, they shipped only 2 million phones versus BlackBerry 10 volume of 2.7 million in the second quarter. Lumia volume grew to 4 million in the third quarter of shipments, and I suspect given the launch of the Q10 and Q5 in the BlackBerry August quarter, we’ll see much stronger performance than this from the Waterloo company when they report their next results.

Depending on how you look at the fight between Nokia and BlackBerry, you can therefore argue that BlackBerry is winning because it’s accelerating BB10 phone sales faster than Nokia, or you can argue that timing is irrelevant, and Nokia is ahead in absolute numbers. So this battle for third place is quite interesting.

It’s also interesting to reflect on the fact that Nokia had to sell Lumia phones to an audience that was not already using Windows Phone, while BlackBerry has a huge built-in customer base having peaked its subscriber base at about 80 million. So one should expect BlackBerry to experience a stronger acceleration, just as appears to be happening. Yet for Nokia to have delivered 32% sequential growth in Lumia volume is nothing to dismiss.

Nokia and BlackBerry are fairly similar companies in a lot of ways. Nokia has 4.1 billion EUR of net cash, while BlackBerry has $3.1 billion. Smartphone volumes are similar, and I’d guess that Nokia’s device margin of 24.4% is close to BlackBerry’s. Remember that BlackBerry recently had 36% gross margin, but this includes a fairly large chunk of high-margin service revenue. On the bottom line, as I said, both companies are pretty close to break even.

Let them both keep moving. Let the race continue, and let the players fight hard. In the end it’s all makes our consumer experience better.

(Chris Umiastowski is a contributing financial writer to the Mobile Nation network. You can see the rest of his posts here at AndroidCentral, iMore and CrackBerry.)

Is Nokia really outselling BlackBerry, and what does it all mean?

Sales are accelerating faster for BB10 because they advertise nearly everywhere on the Internet and extensively in highly populated urban areas. I have seen a couple of Windows Phone 8 ads, but in a month or somweremtaken down and replaced by local business ads.

I think Nokia wins. We have iOS in the market. We have Android in the market, which is quite similar, but cheaper. And we have Windows Phone, an alternative, something new, something growing, something fresh. And then there is Blackberry 10. From what i've seen it looks very similar to Android and iOS. On Windows Phone, customers love the design, love the personalisation, love office, love how it works with the Microsoft ecosystem. On Blackberry, customers will be like "There is no reason for me to buy Blackberry." Because both Nokia and BB have the problem with the lack of apps. So they have to make their own advantages - WP has these, BB doesn't.

"okia and BlackBerry are fairly similar companies in a lot of ways. "
No they are not. Nokia sold 60 million phones and a lot of network gear and B2B services -- plus plenty of royalties, too. Nokia + Nokia Networks will have about 150 000 employees. How on Earth is it like Blackberry, which has a completely different business strategy and corporate structure??

The Lumia 925 will not sell well on Tmobile i went to the store here in L.A and the phone was in the back of the store in a conner out of sight .I ask the guy what's up with that he had no answer but the iphone and the andriod was in you're face as soon as you walk in the store.So my best guess is EOL in 5 to 6 month same as the Lumia 810 .

i want windows phone and BB10 to succeed
there should be competition, always
that is what pushes competition and brings innovation
all the best .... from a galaxy note 2 owner.... too bad samsung did not launch the Ativ S in India

Since when Symbian is relegated to "feature phone"?
Nokia was once the world leader of smartphone industry with Symbian. Even during the so called "prime time" for BB, Nokia's Symbian sales outnumbered them by far. The current "victory" of Lumia sales just indicates that Nokia is claiming back what it was once belonged tot them

Isn't Blackberry's majority of sales for BB7 devices still? Just looking at BB10 vs Lumia, I think Lumia smashes it. Unless the figures stated above is purely BB10, then we might be in trouble. Z10 must have sold more than the 920 (quarterly average), which is dissapointing. Lumia low end devices are what is keeping it going.

Bit off topic, but I can't get over the adorable sexy look of all those 620's. Well, maybe cute is the better word. All the COLORS! And the shape! And the size! Oh my. I have the cyan, but I want more colors. Oh life is hard :)

Out of those 7.4 million phones, do I have it right that only 500,000 were sold in the US? If so, that means it is up from 400,000 from the 1st quarter, but down 16 percent for the same quarter last year. I'm a big fan of my 920 but these numbers in the US make me worry

Correct if I'm wrong. I thought the comparative was between Lumia devices (520, 620, 720, 920...etc) and the whole set of Blackberry devices. In other words, Nokia is shipping more devices just considering part of their available set of devices?

This is Awful for me, I personally think that both Nokia and BB10 are the two most innovative smartphone manufacturers in the world, they are the ones really innovating in the smartphone world- BlackBerry with their super slick software, and Nokia with fantastic hardware (I'm more of a hardware person that's why I chose Nokia) but I'm sometimes envious of my BB10 toting friends. I really hope Nokia and BlackBerry can somehow work together to get to the top and squash the uninnovative Apple and Samsung.

Yea BB just got too comfortable with the lead they had that they forgot to listen to consumers instead of the enterprise therefore now being left behind and I am not sure what they can do to save themselves anymore.

If NOKIA is smart and genuinely believe in diversification they will create a Lumia with a physical keyboard to suck in all the BB legacy users as well as those who want a smartphone but are scared of going all touch screen.

What it allmeans:
1) Microsoft is knocking Crackberry out of the Enterprise Space.
2) Apple s estimated to sell 26.5 mil phones this last quarter. Nokia sold 7.4 Million. Add in the other Windows phone vendors and Microsoft is selling close to 1 phone for every 3 that Apple sells.
3) Is Apple scared? Shouldn't they be? IF Apple growth declines to 20% as estimated and Microsot keeps up 75% year over year growth then what do we see next year? Microsoft moving closer to 1 phone sold for every 2 Apples sold.

Can you point me to information regarding the growth of Windows Phone in the enterprise market?

I absolutely agree that the current trend is a slow but potentially eventual shift from third place to second place between Windows Phone and iPhone. Many believe Apple is aware of this, and is increasing efforts to bring lower cost iPhones to market going forward to bolster their existing strategy of selling older iPhones for lower prices.

A very well written objective article. There is absolutely no reason to jump on unsubstantiated conclusions on any of these reports. Though I wish Nokia and Microsoft all the best I also want to see blackberry succeed.

Chris. Samsung, HTC and Huawei also sell WP phones so you have to add their sales to Nokia to evaluate WP.

If you're intention was to compare manufacturers, Nokia and BlackBerry are much lower in that list, not even close to third.
So your comparison doesn't make any sense..as usual. I don't like your posts here or in crackberry, you don't check your data, post misleading information. I think Mobile Nations deserve a better analyst.

To be real Nokia is the Samsung of windows phone so other OEMS that "sell" windows phone count as a very, very, very small number that hardly add to the market share. This is excluding HTC and maybe huawei. But i see your point.

Chris, I don't mind your attempt to be provacative and to search for the darkest cloud as this was labeled an editorial. I do think you've grasped a few straws. Someone else mentioned that is unlikely BB will have 7 quarters to grow its business. The company doesn't have the cash and it doesn't have a benefactor. Nokia has been burning through cash, but they do have a benefactor with lots of cash and a distinct interest in seeing them succeed. Because of this BB has a very short time to turn things around, far less than Nokia had.
BB has that devoted installed base, but I haven't seen any indicators the base is flocking to the new devices. If you have, please share the information. The BB people I know just keep using the device they've got and when we talk about new products, I'd suspect they will gravitate to Apple (and maybe WP) when their device dies. None of them have talked about getting the new BB devices.
You can footnote the numbers all you want, but I know in the end, both Nokia and BB would rather be the one who sold the most devices in the quarter instead of the one who didn't.

Nokia used to be a huge company, largest in Europe on valuation and they are still heavily weighted by those fat 11 years. They are still a company with slightly below 100 000 workers. Used to be 135 000.

While WP sales are okisk, it's peanuts in the bigger picture as Nokia just sold 20 million less phones this quarter than last year, 45 million less compared to Q2 2009.
Nokia should sell 14 million Lumias a quarter just to break even on Lumias and that's before Nokia's S40 phones keep declining.

BB in a other hand has never been a global leader and doesn't share similar, heavy background.

And they've gone from 2.7 million to 7.4 million in a short time... I have no doubt that they'll accomplish that goal.

It's funny though... as much as I hate Apple, I don't want them to die (even though I still argue that by year-end 2015 or early 2016 they'll be irrelevant *again*). Blackberry really just needs to go away. They bullied their way to the top the same as Google, and I think it's poetic justice to suffer for that. Google, however, still has a lot of steam left in them before we see them fall apart, and if there's a company that can battle them... it's Microsoft. Microsoft as an underdog platform is always the best.

Uhm how can you differentiate between BB7 OS and BB10 OS but not between WP7 and WP8? If you say it's BBs 2nd quarter of sale you'd also have to say it's Lumias 3rd (and not the 7th as you state) since WP7 is fundamentally different than WP8 is. But if you just comparing the marketing name of "Lumia" against BB, it would be around 4 years plus for BB I think.

Everyone is trying to emulate Apple and have one "hero" phone. Nokia, on the other hand, seems to be emulating HP. Rather than one expensive device, create a device for every facet of life. No one, other the most hardcore of Mac users, have made it through life without at least touching an HP PC. I think Nokia is trying to do the same thing with smartphones.

If you think Nokia is emulating Samsung or HP then you don't know Nokia's history. Nokia have also had phones for every price point all around the world. They were recently surpassed by Samsung due to strangling of Symbian. If Symbian was not killed, it would still have more market share than WP till today (in fact install base of Symbian is still way bigger than WP). I am die hard Nokia fan and now WP fan due to Nokia. I know WP is pretty smooth but that doesn't cut it unless you compete on features/apps/price.
Fact 1: Nokia has grown WP market share due to Nokia brand not necessarily due to WP's features or quality.
Fact 2: Nokia sold a lot of Symbian phones until the start of this year. I guess at least 40-50% will choose another Nokia phone next time they buy a phone regardless of what OS Nokia offers.
Fact 3: There is a lot of hatred against Microsoft/Windows around the world more so in the US due to its dominance in desktop/laptop OS. So, just having the Mobile OS as windows itself hurts this OS more than anything (its my observation). If I ask my friends that this phone runs on Windows, they immediately say "I hate windows/microsoft". So microsoft needs to clear its image somehow.

Except for one Samsung dumb phone I've always used Nokia phones so I can say that I know Nokia's history well enough. I'm not saying "emulating" as a bad thing. I'm talking about the unified brand strategy they are using (which was not the case with Symbian phones, they had three different classes and confusing number schemes) looks similar to the approach of Samsung. That's not copying at all. It's a well known marketing strategy choice; you either choose to have different brands and advertise them separately or create one unified brand.

We've been waiting for the "tipping point" for a long time. Personally, I've wrongly predicted repeatedly, and, in general, I think the WP crowd has been impatient. We need to just sit back and enjoy steadily increasing volume and market share; and if we do see a massive spike in WP sales, we can just say we knew it all along. At this point, at least, I think it's relatively safe to say WP is in the clear for continued growth, as long as Nokia can finish and finally justify their company-wide U-Turn.

I thought that Chris Umiastowski is changing ship and I wasn't happy at all. What we don't need here on WPCENTRAL is unreal optimistic articles with similar type of analysis. Analysis where conclusion is prior to facts. We have enough own fans. So I am satisfied that he is still on BB site.

Nokia (and Windows Phone in general) is having a hell of a lot of trouble in the U.S. Microsoft needs to really step it up in the way of delivering frequent OS updates (with noticeable/major changes w/each itieration). As for pushing devices to market, I can't really think of much besides getting US carriers on board completely, and with Windows Phone (esp. Nokia) kept on its knees by exclusives this going to be difficult.

One option is to develop a premium $350 off-contract phone and push it unlocked through Microsoft stores. If carriers can't play fair/nice/honest, then Microsoft should just change the rules of the game.

I think Nokia will gave a flat quarter next time. Unless the 1020 proves to sell high because of the megapixel craze, I don't think $299 in the US will help it. At that price, I don't see how Verizon didn't get it at the same time as at&t. I'm pretty sure Verizon could subsidized it down to $299 as well.

If you take 15 minutes to look on att.com, you'll see that the Galaxy S4 is $250 on contract and the iPhone 5 is also $300 along with the Galaxy Note II. So, yes, the 1020 is "expensive" compared to other Nokia's and the low-end spectrum, it's right on target with the other big boys.

I think there's still plenty of room at the top for people who realize, "holy crap... $300 will get me a GREAT smartphone that's also an AMAZING point-and-shoot camera" rather than pay that for a phone with a mediocre camera and have to turn around and buy a digital p&s camera that doesn't do nearly as good a job.

The battle in the US is like weighing yourself everyday instead of weekly/monthly. One problem of WP stats is that WP8 just came out less than a year ago. There were people getting WP7 phones at this time last year in the US. Considering an average 2-year contract, they will be on this phone till 2014 and not included in these quarterly stats like Nokia US sales.

windows phone, yes, as I stated...but lumina is not yet available on all US carriers. I am just referring to US only. I had a trophy, the only windows phone on VZW until last month....928. My 2 year contract just ran out.

I bought a used trophy on e-bay just to get a feel for windows phone. It was a wonderful form-factor and it did almost everything I needed it to. However, sticking with Verizon is a bad idea if you want to use windows phone, or any latest tech for that matter. AT&T I think has the best mix of devices, prices and coverage. Verizon is a crying shame, no wonder their results did not meet targets this quarter. Also, their CDMA to 4G hand-off is horrible. Its akin to dropped connections everytime it happens on my DNA and my wife's RAZR Maxx. I will be moving to AT&T in 2 months.

This is not a Nokia problem but it's the side of Microsoft, because their OS is really disappointed, there is no dedication. look simply how the famous Apps of every platform are useless on WP like whatsapp, Facebook, viber, or how many important Apps aren't there officially. I think Nokia they did everything they could, good hardware, good advertising and even greater software which are better than the one from Microsoft. shame on you Microsoft.

The problem with this analysis is that Blackberry's results are on tremendous decline and NOT on the rise, and Nokia is rising. How does a platform go from being 70-80% of the market to 0.7% of the market? Simple... Blackberry Legacy isn't the only thing stuck in the past... the whole company is. Just like old-school Windows Mobile, it's time to let go and move on.

True, and I don't dispute that, but the company on the whole isn't entirely a sinking ship... after factoring in restructuring costs, they've had underlying profitability two quarters in a row, so they're stabilizing and beginning a recovery. What's going to matter right now is whether Nokia continues to gain traction with Lumia.

They want low end smartphones, where android pretty much sucks but sells well. However, android 4.3 and 5.0 are supposedly going to run well on low end devices, so I wonder how much longer Nokia can hold onto the "best low end Smartphone" tagline.

Thank you for this. A bunch of WP guys have been celebrating the percieved over taking of BB with todays numbers, but there are some looming issues for Nokia's market share. Primalry that Nokia needs to pull users from other platforms to increase share, BB has the much easier job of trying to convince current BB users (and there are still a lot of them) to upgrade to BB10.

All he did was compare the Lumia line of phones, you can add 60 million units sold when you consider the other phones they sell, which means Nokia is way in front of BB. Plus Nokia can afford to lose what it lost this quarter for another 4 years, BB doesn't have enough money to get them half way there. Their BB phones must take off and succeed or they will be gone in 2 years or less.

Also, 36% of windows phone switchers came from android, 25% from apple about 10% from BB and the rest from feature phones. BB is struggling to even convince its own legacy users to upgrade, let alone try and convince new people to switch.

You forget to mention ex Symbian users. If you compare Nokia's total smart phones sales then these are lower than in the last quarters. So Nokia isn't even able to convince ex Symbian users to go with WP.

I think the numbers are great. 7.2MM smartphones (and 60MM+ dumbphones) is an awesome amount. Its 25% of what Apple will sell, but that a huge jump. Many of the sales are the lower-margin 520 model, but anything that grows this platform is good for Nokia. The higher-end devices will all benefit. Sell low-end phones (take market share away from Android), add the apps/developers and now you are talking.
It is such an accomplishment to grow marketshare when you are such a small player. You have everything against you. However, all signs are positive...it wont be long now before we hit the "tipping point".

Maybe if you're in US, but anywhere else, it's far away from being niche. Overall I think the situation is not going to change as far as the market share goes but you will have a strong ecosystem and a fine running OS because of the international demand for Nokia phones.

It seems you're confused. I mean this respectfully: maybe you don't understand what "niche" actually means -- it's definitely not a synonym for popular. In the context I used it, I was referring to how Nokia's current selection of devices serve a good purpose despite their relatively low popularity.
Just look the word up so you can make sense of my comment.
And yes, I technically used it as an adjective . . .

You should travel more or develop better reading comprehension skills. He said Nokia may be a niche (unpopular) product in the USA but it is not so in other parts of the world. In Europe Nokias are a dime a dozen. They are everywhere. Well, they WERE everywhere. Androids and iPhones have blown pass them.
Still, in Europe Nokias are not niche devices.

Never seen a blackberry live here but I really like that they adopted QT/QML. I'm hoping this will aid most of the emerging phone operating systems like sailfish and tizen as well seeing as QT/QML seems to be something they have in common.

well bucko the difference is BB doesn't have 2 years to slog it out and "learn" like Microsoft did with windows phone. They don't have 7 quarters to get back in the game. They also have less cash to burn through....and with their losses the burn rate is higher. 2014 is fire sale time at BB.

I used mine a few times, but yeah, pretty much sat idle. After I got my surface I had no justification to keep it. In the end I sold it on amazon for about as much as I paid for it in the first place :)

I agree, but from a numbers point of view, the high-end Lumia's are still not selling in quantities. its the lower end 520s of the world that are really accounting for the growth. But thats ok, because whatever benefits will WP8 and Nokia, will benefit the high-end eventually.

But it's not entirely that either... Android never "took off" until they flooded the market with low end... people liked that but realized "this is slow... I need something better" so they upgraded to better Androids.

We need to do the same thing with Windows Phone... flood the market with 500-600-700 series and then tease them with the high end.

Yes... release more 500 level devices and even a 400. Until I see multiple Windows Phone devices in terrible plastic packaging hanging in the aisles of my local drug stores and department stores, they haven't gotten cheap enough.

Now I realize this is one example and not representative of the whole, but we need $50 devices. My uncle a $50 Android devices (on sale, normally in the $70-80 range). I can't convince him to pay $120 for a Lumia 521 because it's too much for a disposable product. I know he is unique in my circle, but I know he can't be unique in the world.

The emerging markets is where all the growth is at. This means you need even cheaper than the 520 line. I don't care if it's Samsung, HTC, Nokia or some other OEM. A razer thin margin device that doesn't get any kind of promotion other than being plentifully stocked every where you can find an Android device is what is required... I put that plentifully part in since you can't find a 521 at Walmart, other than the display.

That's what I've been saying. If MS can get low end OEMs like Kyocera on board and get Samsung & LG to start crafting low end devices for the prepaid/emerging marketWalmart crowd, WP would take off just as Android did. It all starts with MS lowering or eliminating the licensing fee so the ball really is in MS's court.

I think the licensing fee is not that big of a deal, Android makers already have to pay MS for android (most likely lower than a wp8 license) but also need to hire more engineers to skin android and maintain and update. It probably even comes out cheaper to just license WP8, just my opinion I don't have any facts :D

I have to agree... I live in the Philippines, so we ARE part and parcel of the "emerging markets" where the low-to-mid range Lumias are targeted. I switched to WP7.5 with a Lumia 610. Just three months in, the Lumia 720 got released for commercial distribution at local Nokia Stores and I just HAD to get me some of that WP8 awesomeness... I'm a delighted customer, although I do have to admit I get envious of the apps that run on 1Gb Memory Lumias.

I have to agree here... Lets us consider what the author has not... BB owners have been waiting for a LONG time to upgrade, and I think the figure for this past quarter reflects a huge wave of legacy upgrades, but I doubt any of them were switching to the platform. I also doubt that a ton of current BB owners are holding out, though I'm sure they will move some phones, I do feel like were going to see BB decline QoQ unlike Nokia. The second thing the author didn't mention is all the other phones that Nokia sells, only mentioning the Lumia line. While I personally only care about the Lumia line, the fact is Nokia sells tens of millions of feature phones, and at a profit as well. While these feature phones will be phased out and replaced with low end Lumia phones, you are still discounting the total number of phones being moved by Nokia. I feel like Nokias phone division only losing $150 million, which is less than last quarter, is a sign that they could be entering profitability very soon. I also feel that BB will be losing more money in the quarters to come, and don't have the cash to afford this. Nokia can afford to lose money at its current rate for the next 4 years, BB doesn't have this much time.

Unfortunately the author has blinders on. I like RIM but the big issue is that BB10 requires 2GB of RAM to run smoothly. This means that for the next 2-3 years it will not be able to produce a truly low-end phone a la Curve ($90-110). This means the youth market will migrate to Android and WP8. A lot of BB volume in developing markets and youth was/is in low-end hand-sets. If they cannot compete in that market then they are walking dead.
If RIM can't shoe-horn BB10 in 512 MB of RAM, they're doomed to become a niche player. Right now they are trying to stem the tide by getting in BBM on low-end Android phones and iPhone 4 with the hope that they will upgrade to a Z-class phone when they get their first "I have a job" phone. Don't think that strategy makes sense to me.

And i think they can't. They recently said that BB10 will not be coming to the PlayBook because of performance issues. I am not certain, but i think it packs 1GB RAM and dualcore 1GHz chip.
I agree with most of the posts here. Nokia will turn profitable very soon. Selling feature phones and low end WP phones is great for Nokia. The latter even for MS, the platform and ultimately us.
Blackberry will have to wait it out out i guess. MS said that they don't view that smartphone business as sprint but rather a marathon. MS won't run out of money anytime soon, no matter how WP performs.
I think if Blackberry sticks around long enough there is definitely a market for them. I just hope they have enough money left to get there.
On the other hand i get mad when i read posts on other forums that Nokia hasn't got any money left and are going the way of the dinosaur.
So all the best to BB, but since they cancelled BB10 for the PlayBook after promising and reiterating that it will come they lost me for good.